Review: Basics of Biblical Aramaic by Miles V. Van Pelt

Review of Basics of Biblical Aramaic: Complete Grammar, Lexicon, and Annotated Text by Miles V. Van Pelt Reviewed by: Andrew W. Litke As Van Pelt states in the introduction, this grammar is not meant for “Aramaic scholars or for students interested in comparative Semitic grammar. Rather, … [it] was written for those students who desire to study, teach, and preach faithfully from those portions of the Bible that appear in Aramaic.” (p. x) Indeed, the subtitle presents the book as a one-stop resource for beginning students. The author assumes that these students have studied Biblical Hebrew (BH), and there are frequent references to BH and the author’s corresponding grammar for that language.1 The book is grouped into seven sections. The first four sections are divided into twenty-two chapters on the grammar of Biblical Aramaic (BA). The first section, “Aramaic Phonological System” (chaps. 1-3), covers the alphabet, vowels, and syllabification. In the second section, “Aramaic Nominal System” (chaps. 4-11), Van Pelt spends three chapters (chaps. 4-6) on the noun states before turning to conjunctions, prepositions, pronouns, adjectives, numerals, and adverbs. The third section, “Aramaic Verbal System: Peal” (chaps. 12-17), begins with a chapter presenting Van Pelt’s understanding of the Biblical Aramaic verbal system. This chapter is followed by a full presentation of the Peal, and the weak roots are discussed along with the strong roots. The fourth and final section of the grammar, “Aramaic Verbal System: Derived Stems” (chaps. 18-22), is dedicated to the other major verbal stems. Van Pelt uses traditional terminology (Peal, Pael, etc.) to label the verbal stems, but he also includes a chart (p. 78) to give their correspondences in modern “comparative Semitic” terminology (G, D, etc.). It should be mentioned, however, that some of these are mislabeled from their common use among Aramaists and comparative Semiticists. He labels the (H)aphel as H, but this stem is usually labeled as C, and he labels the (H)ithpeel as Ht when it is usually labeled as Gt. Over the course of the first seventeen chapters, there are vocabulary lists that include all of the BA words that are attested four or more times. Exercises are drawn from the biblical text, and they usually include a parsing section (nominal or verbal) followed by a translation section. The fifth section of the book, “Charts and Paradigms” (pp. 155-162) includes a collection of the more important paradigms that are presented earlier in the book. The sixth section of the book, “Annotated Biblical Aramaic Text” (pp. 163-219) presents all of the Aramaic text with some philological notes, most of which are                                                                                                                 1 Gary D. Pratico and Miles V. Van Pelt, Basics of Biblical Hebrew: Grammar (2nd ed., Grand Rapids: Zondervan, 2007). [BBH] concerned with parsings and references to the grammar. The seventh, and final section of the book is an “Aramaic-English Lexicon” that is a glossary based on HALOT.2 The author’s goals of creating a single volume to help students read the Aramaic portions of the Bible are commendable, and a great benefit of the book is that there are only twenty-two chapters in the grammar. This means that students can get into the biblical text fairly quickly. What is more, time spent in the grammar can be expedited since a number of the lessons can be combined into one teaching session, such as the chapters on phonology or noun states. There are a number of issues in the book, however, that prevent it from being the primary teaching grammar of Biblical Aramaic on the market. There are a number of typos that can easily be addressed in the next edition. A representative list should suffice to make the point. There are some mistranslations such as ‫“ לְהַנְעָלָה‬being deposited/stored” (p. 146). Some words are mispointed; for instance, one sees the Peal Impv fs listed as ‫( אֱכֻלִי‬p. 102) when it should be ‫אֲכֻלִי‬. Some of the paradigms could be adjusted or clarified: for instance, the “Type 2” pronominal suffixes presented on pp. 46-48 indicate hypothetical vocalizations for the Ketib orthography without making this clear. Finally, it should be pointed out that the pagination of the biblical text should go from right to left rather than left to right. There are a number of pedagogical improvements that could be made. It is beneficial for students to regularly practice parsing, and there are plenty of parsing exercises throughout the book. The problem is that the parsing exercises only address the forms learned in that chapter. It would be much better to mix in forms learned in previous chapters so as to reinforce the material continually. There is little to be gained from parsing fifteen Peal infinitives (p. 110). The translation exercises are usually limited to short clauses that are often quite awkward out of context. It might be better to have fewer passages that are longer. This, once again, allows students to reinforce the forms already learned and begin getting comfortable with the complexities of BA syntax. Of course, if a word or form has not been covered yet, a simple footnote would suffice. A more troubling issue is the pervasive lack of linguistic or historical clarity. First, there are two sentences dedicated to the dialect of BA (p. x), and even this is inaccurate. He uses the term “Jewish Literary Aramaic” to describe BA, but if Aramaists use that term, it is usually a reference to the Targumim of Onqelos and Jonathan (and sometimes Qumran Aramaic). Furthermore, with such frequent reference to Hebrew, the student would be greatly helped by a paragraph or two in                                                                                                                 2  Ludwig  Kohler  and  Walter  Baumgartner,  revised  by  Baumgartner  and  Stamm,   translated  and  edited  by  Richardson  with  Jongeling-­‐Vos  and  Regt,  The  Hebrew  and   Aramaic  Lexicon  of  the  Old  Testament  (Brill,  2000).   the introduction that describes Aramaic in its own right followed by a description of its relationship to BH. By the end of the book, one can get the impression that morphology and the lexicon are all that differentiates these two languages. This muddling of BH and BA is especially evident when one compares the introduction to the verbal system (chap. 12) with the corresponding introduction to the verbal system of BH in BBH (chap. 12). The two are presented in almost the exact same way, as if Aramaic is essentially Hebrew. It does not seem that Van Pelt has taken the unique features of the BA verbal system into account. Second, Van Pelt has made the false assumption that linguistic precision or historical descriptions are more difficult for students to grasp. For instance, the description of the vocalic system as having five vowel “classes” is not only inaccurate,3 but it is counterproductive once students encounter vowel changes. A historically and linguistically precise presentation of the vowels would be much more effective. Third, some descriptions of the verbal “uses” are not accurate. For instance, when explaining the use of the participle, Van Pelt states that the participle “is technically a predicate adjective” (p. 115) when used with a form of ‫ ;הוה‬rather, this is a periphrastic construction common in Aramaic to show continuous action. Also, in describing the use of the infinitive, Van Pelt states that it can be used “with the Imperfect to grant permission” (p. 108) when a particular root is in the infinitival form followed by the same root in the imperfect. In all three examples, there is a failure to recognize that the infinitive is actually complementing an earlier verb in the sentence (not given in the examples) instead of the following verb that happens to be of the same root. This is made clear by the Masoretic accentuation. The “permission” is due to the modal use of the imperfect instead of anything about the previous infinitive. Other examples could be given, but this should suffice. In the final analysis, while the basic components of a successful teaching grammar are found in this book, a teacher who wishes to use this grammar in the classroom will probably spend more time correcting and supplementing the textbook than the author intended.                                                                                                                 3 Presumably, the choice of “five” is to cater to English speakers’ five vowels as the authors explicitly state in their grammar on BH, see BBH p. 16.